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Friday, December 17, 2010

Nicholas D. Kristof Loves Somalia:

His argument works like this. "Of course people can look at some Muslim activities and then make a fallacious generalization that all Islam and all Muslims must be bad, but the truth is more nuanced. There are actually good Muslims too."

The problem with Kristof's theory is he, in turn, isn't being nuanced enough. Just because one Muslim somewhere is trying to reverse the damage other Muslims are doing around her doesn't make Muslims a 'mixed bag.' Inside every human being there are multiple wills at cross-purposes as well. There are dozens of raging forces that determine whether you eat, sleep, brush your teeth, etc, competing wills that give reasons for and against each decision. Artificially labeling a human 'good' or 'evil' based on his final decision isn't nuanced enough, right? Only the 'evil' part of the soul that overcame the 'good' restraints to move ahead and pursue an 'evil' goal should be condemned, right? Wrong. Because what we are judging is the totality of the person, which did in fact choose, after all is said and done, evil.

We can imagine that inside the beast that is Islam, many competing wills, thoughts, and decisions are fighting amongst each other. This doesn't create a 'nuanced' picture where we have to divide the good from the bad though. We can just assume that whichever force prevails, whichever forces that take power and mold society, are the true face of Islam and Muslims. The entity that emerges from all of the competing models of Islam is the true Islam. All other Islams are false and meaningless side paths that lost the internal war of the will. There is only one true Islam, and only one true Muslim, and that is the Islam that, having conquered all of its internal debates, unifies around some policy or other when facing the outside world.

The unified policy of Islam vis a vis the outside world is simple: Jihad. The unified policy of Islam vis a vis itself is also simple: Shari'a. The unified policy of Islam vis a vis conquered minorities is also simple: dhimmitude. These are the final results of every Muslim polity. It doesn't matter what this renegade Muslim or that counter-current Muslim thinks, because they are just flotsam in the rushing river that is true Islam, the Islam that is in power, the Islam that makes the real decisions on this Earth.

Those Muslim nations that border with non-Muslim nations are constantly at war with the rest of mankind. There is a ring of fire, like the collision of continental plates, surrounding the outskirts of Islam. Bosnia, Kashmir, Chechnya, the southern Philippines, Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, Macedonia, western China, Ethiopia, wherever you go the story is the same. We find that all conflicts of the modern age are on the bleeding edge of Muslim territories. It hardly matters who is to blame in each instance, or what the local cause of each conflict has been. The pattern is too obvious to pretend it's a giant coincidence. The overarching cause of all the conflicts is Islam itself. All of the adherents of Islam are collectively responsible for the fighting power of Islam, by supporting it financially, morally, and politically in each of these conflicts -- Even if it's against their will that's meaningless, as the USA dropped nuclear bombs on the citizens of Japan whether they were for or against the war, because they were physically supporting the war effort either way as citizens of Japan. It is impossible to believe Muslim civilians, known only for their slavery, piracy, war-mongering and terrorism, are deserving of more care or delicacy than Japanese or Germans, members of civilized and productive races with distinguished histories of accomplishment.

In smaller areas, we find 'war zones' in Sweden, England, Germany, the USA, and everywhere else Muslims have immigrated, as constant news story tell of jihadi terrorists who disapprove of their non-Muslim neighbors trying to kill us all. This is the exact same situation we find on the macro-scale of war except localized to crime and terrorism because the Muslims aren't strong enough yet. This threshold is very loose, for instance Macedonian muslims could be called part of a war or a terrorist/crime wave, just depending on how one chooses to view the conflict. The same was true of Kosovo before Nato joined the Muslims' side. There are proto-wars and proto-borders with Muslims hatching everywhere we have invited Muslims into our midst. These jihadis are the driving force of Islam in the West. Ultimately Islam in the West will be synonymous with crime, terror, and war. These immigrants may have come here wanting many different things, but the Islam that always seizes power only wants one thing: Jihad, shari'a, and dhimmitude for the conquered. If polls show that only 10% of Muslims want shari'a or think jihad is legitimate, you can bet those 10% will ultimately be in power and calling the shots over the other, silent, passive, cud-chewing 90% who never oppose or stop the terrorists.

Child molesters may also want many things but ultimately all their other wants are shunted aside and they find that above all else they want to molest children. Are we supposed to ignore the true nature of child molesters because their internal debates are so nuanced and complex? All I care about is results. The only thing that matters is results. People, cultures, religions, everything is judged by what form it ultimately takes in the real world. The decisions those entities make will be the scale they are weighed in, the impact they have on the outside world will be their measure.

Some random woman in Somalia who is trying, and basically failing (or else why is she begging for money from us, a properly run society which, as proof, has money when she doesn't?) to create an oasis of order in a country locked in anarchy, war, and perpetual failure. This is the same country that dragged seventeen of our dead, mutilated soldiers through the streets last time we tried to give them charity. This is the same country which has been promoting terror and sending jihadis all over the world to blow up themselves and others. But this lone woman is supposed to make Somalia, on balance, 'good', or at least 'neutral' or 'nuanced.' It's impossible to judge Somalia, Kristof says, because this lone woman is trying, in vain, to save 90,000 worthless lives in a worthless country that is trying its best to kill everyone and is much stronger than her. I don't think so. That isn't a balanced or nuanced picture. It's a ridiculous picture. That's like saying Hitler was balanced and nuanced because, although he killed 50 million people by starting World War II, he was a vegetarian and thus killed fewer animals than the average man. The idea is insulting. No scales are ever 'balanced' or 'nuanced.' They either fall one way or the other. Good and evil can be judged. The totality of a system, a culture, a genome, can be judged. The true nature of Islam is readily visible and apparent to all. It's not even close. If people read Kristof's article with any objective sense, they'd realize all the evidence he's providing works against his own article. That everything he says is only digging his grave even deeper by the second.

What’s the ugliest side of Islam? Maybe it’s the Somali Muslim militias that engage in atrocities like the execution of a 13-year-old girl named Aisha Ibrahim. Three men raped Aisha, and when she reported the crime she was charged with illicit sex, half-buried in the ground before a crowd of 1,000 and then stoned to death.

Dr. Hawa, a 63-year-old ob-gyn who earned a law degree on the side, is visiting the United States to raise money for her health work back home. A member of Somalia’s elite, she founded a one-room clinic in 1983, but then the Somalian government collapsed, famine struck, and aid groups fled. So today Dr. Hawa is running a 400-bed hospital.

Over the years, the hospital became the core of something even grander. Thousands and thousands of people displaced by civil war came to shelter on Dr. Hawa’s 1,300 acres of farmland around the hospital. Today her home and hospital have been overtaken by a vast camp that she says numbers about 90,000 displaced people.

The Party of Islam then attacked with 750 soldiers and seized the hospital.

It didn’t come to that. The Party of Islam tired of being denounced by Somalis at home and around the world, so it slinked off and handed over an apology — but also left behind a wrecked hospital. The operating theater still isn’t functional, and that’s why Dr. Hawa is here, appealing for money (especially from ethnic Somalis).

If only Kristof had read Atlas Shrugged and We the Living, he would understand what is happening in the quotes above. This lone woman is facing an impossible situation. In the face of tyranny an individual can A) kill himself, B) kill his mind, or C) leave. She cannot open a hospital and take care of 90,000 refugees. It's patently absurd. The only way it is working is that healthier societies, that have not yet succumbed to her evil philosophy, are more productive and can support her and her parasite brethren. This also happened in Atlas Shrugged, where the USA constantly sent relief shipments to the more communist nations of Europe and elsewhere abroad, all in the name of humanitarianism, but in fact in the name of communism, because all it did was empower communism and bleed dry what was left of the capitalist, well-run, America. The heroic pirate Ragnar Dagneskjold, correctly understanding the meaning and results of these 'relief shipments,' would intercept and destroy them before the charity ever arrived. Kristof's 'hero' is in fact a villain, a member of the looter class, that is trying to empower Islam, a failed society, at the expense of America, a successful, good society.

Somalians don't deserve one penny from any of us. Their deaths, like their lives, are meaningless. They caused all of their own problems. They have invaded their neighbors, attacked us with terrorists and pirates, mutilated our soldiers and cheered their deaths while dragging them through the street, and basically done everything possible to distinguish themselves as the most feral, barbarous shithole on Earth. Mercy is wasted on them. Charity is pearls before swine.

Muslims are a negative force in this world. Every single muslim nation on Earth is a negative force in this world. Every single muslim community in the West is a negative force in this world. Magnifying the focus closer and closer and closer until you can find some random 'heroic' Muslim doesn't change this objective calculus. It's a meaningless objection that just distorts the larger picture and foils our ability to act in such a way that might counter the threat and damage of Islam. If we let Islam in any form metastasize into more of the world's healthy organs, it will eventually enslave the whole world under a dark age of sub-90 IQ anti-progress anti-reason fanatics that might well spell the permanent stagnation, and thus eventual death of mankind (the sun will blow up eventually, after all). The only solution to Islam is to stomp on its head, over and over, until the ideology and all of its adherents are eradicated from the face of the Earth. Just like the Spanish stomped on the Aztec beliefs of cannibalism and human sacrifice. Just like the English stomped on the Indian beliefs of thuggee and suttee. Some cultures do not deserve to survive on this Earth, they are filth and the only proper response is to cleanse.

Meanwhile, real people are doing real things on this Earth. Real heroes, non-Muslim heroes, are making the advances that really will change the world, within the framework of helpful demographics, helpful societies, helpful cultures, that make their work possible and productive, without which heroism and good cannot overcome:http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/26916/?p1=MstRcnt

Oasys Water, a company that has been developing a novel, inexpensive desalination technology, showed off a new development facility in Boston this week. The company, which has been demonstrating commercial-scale components of its system in recent months, plans to begin testing a complete system early next year and to start selling the systems by the end of 2011.

"The cost will be low enough to make aqueduct and dam projects look expensive in comparison," says Oasys cofounder and chief technology officer Robert McGinnis, who invented the company's core technology.

The Oasys system requires just one-tenth as much electricity as a reverse-osmosis system, McGinnis says, because water doesn't have to be forced through a membrane at high pressure. That's a crucial source of savings, since electricity can account for nearly half the cost of reverse-osmosis technology. Not working with pressurized water also decreases the cost of building the plant—there is no need for expensive pipes that can withstand high pressures. The combination of lower power consumption and cheaper equipment results in lower overall costs.

The Oasys system will not help everyone. For example, it is unlikely to do much for farmers; although they account for about 80 percent of fresh-water consumption, it wouldn't be cost-effective for them

In agricultural areas where water is scarce, he says, it's cheaper to switch to better irrigation practices.

Of course, once every other method has been exhausted and we still need more water for farming because our population has continued to grow, this technique, no matter how expensive, Would be used for irrigation and farming. The price of food would climb, but the world would suddenly have as much food as our 70% ocean planet could support, instead of whatever our puny rivers and rainfall could manage. This invention, plus whatever improvements they are intending to make to it, will change the world. It crushes all the peak water whiners that were claiming the world is doomed overnight, giving all of the thirstiest aquifer draining cities of the world cheap drinking water. Ultimately, it makes the world 20 times as rich because it gives us access to 20 times as much life-giving food, via life-giving water for said food, whenever necessary. This is called a game changer. Taking care of 90,000 refugees until the next army battalion wrecks your hospital again is not a game-changer. This is what heroes, and good people, results-producing people, really look like.

Shi grew up in China but spent a decade in Australia pursuing his education and beginning his work in solar cell production. In 2000, he returned to his homeland and began setting up factories to take advantage of China’s low labor costs and other economy measures to produce solar panels at a lower cost than companies elsewhere could match. At the time, China had a negligible presence in the solar business, but now, thanks in large part to Shi’s pioneering work, it dominates the world’s solar industry.

Already, he said, for many locations (such as Italy) the panels his company produces can generate electricity at “grid parity,” meaning the cost is competitive with that from standard (primarily fossil-fuel) sources. Given present trends, the ever-falling prices should bring other locations, including Hawaii, California and Japan, to grid parity within the next five years, he said.

When Suntech started, the typical price for crystalline silicon solar cells was about $5 per watt, but Shi was able to produce them initially for less than $3.

But that’s just the beginning, he stressed. “We’re not even a baby yet,” he said; solar technology today is “still an embryo.”

So here we have a Chinese hero, with an assist from Australia, who has nearly singlehandedly halved the cost of solar power, promising that 'this is just the beginning.' Shi has gifted mankind with the power of the sun, most of whose energy still just wastes and disperses itself every year. The sun can only undergo fusion and emit the radiation once, the sunlight doesn't sit in storage anywhere if we don't use it, therefore every year we go without solar power is like watching a river of gold pass us by. Tapping into this primordial source of wealth, the origin of all wind, food and fossil fuels, would multiply the world's wealth at least tenfold. This advance isn't some sort of vaporware either. It's already as cheap as any other power source in various locations. As time passes, it will only get cheaper, while its competitors like oil will only get more expensive. Since the solar panels last 25 years, the average price of solar power will remain the same the entire time, but the average price of other, exhaustible, energy sources will be much higher, making Shi's solar power plants already a bargain for the far-sighted.

What's better, providing energy and water, the two basic necessities of mankind, by opening up the Sun and the Ocean for exploitation, or begging for charity for the most destructive slime of mankind? Who are the real heroes here? But remember, if you say Chinese, or Americans, or Australians are better than Muslims, or that Muslims pose a threat to China, America, or Australia, Nicholas Kristof is ever-ready with his New York Times platform to denounce you as an 'insane bigot' and an 'ignorant savage.' He has his priorities straight, and he intends to straighten out everyone else's too. Until the last Muslim on Earth is given an elephant and a pony, as well as pats on the head and praise about what special snowflakes they are, no White or Asian country can praise, protect, or invest in itself. To Nicholas D. Kristof, there are no heroes of production or achievement, only heroes of suffering. Those who show the most 'courage' and 'perseverance' while suffering are the best of mankind. The West can't hold a candle to these 'female, heroic Muslims.'

No thank you. There are more important, better things to support in this world than the suffering Muslims of Somalia, or their spiritual kin anywhere else in the world. Like SpaceX, whose test flight was the first commercial rocket to ever deliver cargo safely into space and back. Like A-1 pictures, who animated Fairy Tail, Sora no Woto and Working! in the same year. Like earthworms, that fertilize the soil and can be used as fishing bait. Like paperclips, which can fasten important documents together. Like lint.